Thirteen drabbles
by Nekokoban
Summary: 13 drabbles across canon. SyaoranSakura, KuroganeFay


13 is inspired by a fancomic I once saw off a Japanese fansite. I'm still hoping it comes true. /o/

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**#1 - Forgetfulness**

It's peculiar, where exactly the gaps in her memory lie: she clearly recalls the heat of the desert sun on her face, the shriek of sandstorms outside her window, and the deep gentle sound of her father's voice. She could tell you without thinking the names of the thirteen gods of sky and sand and other legends of her kingdom.

She can tell you without arrogance that she is the princess beloved by her people.

But try as she might, she cannot tell you why Syaoran-kun's face makes her half-filled heart twist like a knife to the chest.

**#2 - Running Away**

"Don't you ever stop?" Kurogane demands. He's pacing the length of their cramped shared room, filling it with his anger. "For once in your goddamned life, just answer the question."

Fay smiles until his one good eye crinkles shut. He's spent a lifetime rehearsing things like this. "Why do you ask things like this," he says, "when you know the answer will make you upset? 'Kurogane'?"

Kurogane glares at him, fingers twitching like he wants nothing more than to use Souhi to cut Fay's smile in two. "You--"

"This," Fay says sweetly, "is the best way I know to live."

**#3 - Sunsets\Sunrises**

Once, jokingly, High Priest Yukito said Syaoran's sun rises and sets on the Princess' smile.

But this isn't true.

The first thing he remembers: is rain and biting cold, the unfriendly faces of the crowd and his own growing bewilderment; where am I, what am I, why am I?

And the last thing he remembers: is pain, a whole blossom of agony bursting from his chest, and the distant, horrible feeling of loss -- forgetting something he must not -- and Fay-san's face, pale and afraid through the miasma of magic, just before something inside shuts off and his world goes black.

**#4 - Make Believe**

"Where I come from," says Fay, nibbling on a cookie, "there's a creature that can't be killed, because it puts its soul within an egg, which is hidden on an island that only appears when it feels like it."

Kurogane grunts. "And?"

"If you can get to that island, and find that egg, you could command something immortal." Fay brushes crumbs from his collar. "What do you think?"

"If it tried crossing me," Kurogane says, "it wouldn't matter. I told you, I'll kill anything that goes after what's mine to protect."

For a moment Fay's smile wavers. "Oh," he says.

**#5 - Blind**

Sometimes what frustrates Sakura the most is that she never saw any of it coming.

She remembers, now, the training that Yukito-san gave her, to recognize the precognition that sometimes comes to her, even if she can't understand them. But this and that are different; it angers her that she never saw enough to react proactively -- maybe if she had, she could have carried more weight, fought alongside the rest of them

(with syaoran-kun)

instead of just being their sleeping symbolic princess. Even when she'd been awake, there was so much she'd missed seeing.

Sakura is done with regrets now.

**#6 - Old Sayings**

Clow once told Mokona: "The smallest creatures can have the greatest hearts."

Yuuko once told Mokona: "Even when they aren't here any more, the people we love will always stay with us. We'll feel them in our hearts."

And Mokona had once held hands with Mokona and they'd watched stars fall, and Mokona had said: "I wish I could go with you, when 'that time' comes."

Mokona holds these within Mokona's heart -- which is great as Clow said, and holds everyone Yuuko promised, like the other Mokona, who could not come.

But, Mokona thinks, there is always room for more.

**#7 - Weird**

"How can you eat that stuff?" Kurogane demands, as Fay hands ice cream cones to Sakura and Syaoran.

"Hmm?" Fay blinks. "Eat what, Kuro-rin?"

"That." Kurogane points to the pale green confection in Fay's hand, which is studded with small dark spots ("chocolate chips!" Mokona cheered, before devouring its share whole).

Fay takes a coy, catlike lick of the ice cream. "How can you eat that raw fish stuff?" he asks.

"Sushi?" Kurogane blinks. "At least it's good!"

"So is this," Fay chirps, and uses it to paint a mint ice swatch across Kurogane's nose before fleeing across the park.

**#8 - Undone**

Fay holds desperately still as Kurogane undoes the eyepatch -- for all his bluster and noise, the ninja's fingers move with surprising delicateness. When it pulls away from his face Fay resists the urge to snatch it back, but it's too late for that.

"Kuro--" he starts to say, and isn't sure even as he does if he'll finish with the proper name or one of the old nicknames, and is stalled by Kurogane's fingers on his face: they press into the rise of his cheekbone, under his eye, and all his words come to silence and he meets him halfway.

**#9 - Song**

In the next world they reach, they encounter a Tomoyo who is a singer, dressed in red and black, standing on the stage's spotlight (which makes Kurogane nervous, because that's just asking to be targeted), hands clasped as she sings.

Tomoyo's song is no deeper or more profound than Oruha's, so many worlds ago, but the familiar voice strikes an unexpected chord of homesickness in him -- not even for Japan, but for Suwa itself, where once his mother sang him to sleep.

_if you fear the darkness  
I will be there  
take my hand  
and I will stay with you_

**#10 - Crowds**

One thing Syaoran saw, as they traveled:

A man who looked strikingly like Kurogane-san, except that he carried no sword and wore a dark blue suit in the style of the world. He stood under a tree, looking like he was waiting for something. Syaoran almost spoke to him, but then a woman hurried up to him, and -- she'd been tall and willowy, with golden hair and blue eyes in a white dress, and clutching her hand had been a little girl with sandy hair and clear green eyes.

When he blinked, they were gone.

Frankly, he thinks he's relieved.

**#11 - Done Away With**

At the end of fairytales, there's always a soft landing -- a "happily ever after" where the prince and princess walk off hand in hand, the villains are punished, and other good folk are rewarded for their support of true love.

Long ago he learned that life is no fairytale: they have bitter spots and hard sharp edges, and rarely does anything resolve itself neatly. For a while he almost forgot this: because he'd been happy, with the children and Mokona and even Kurogane.

But ultimately the illusion had crumbled, leaving a faint taste of wistfulness and the memory of forgetting.

**#12 - Wars**

There are days where it takes everything Syaoran has not to turn to the princess and say please, it's me, don't you remember? I've been yours since the day we met.

And there are days when the temptation to just start walking and never look back sits so heavy in Fay's bones that he thinks the longing of it might crush him.

And the dull ache of missing his princess -- his home -- suffocates the words in Kurogane's throat, and so he just growls and sulks rather than say anything.

And Sakura dreams of a single feather just beyond her reach.

**# 13 - You & Me**

"Hey," Fay says.

Kurogane twitches, but glances at him briefly. "Ah?"

Fay grips his borrowed staff tightly in his hands, watching the knuckles turn white. It was strange how his heart was thundering in his ears -- a vampire having a heartbeat! -- but he still forces himself to take a calming breath, mustering his failing courage.

"When all of this is over," he says, and waits as Kurogane cuts down another demon, "take me to your Japan with you."

Kurogane twists; there's a spatter of black blood on his cheek. He looks at Fay with serious eyes.

"All right," he says.


End file.
